Press for Change Question Guidance
The Press for Change website strongly advises against grouping transgender
with gender or sexual orientation questions. As most transsexual people do
not consider themselves to be a third sex and being trans has nothing to do
with who you are attracted to. They therefore advise treating trans as a
separate entity and using one of the following approaches specifying that the
question completion is optional:
Is your gender identity the same as the gender you were assigned at birth?
Yes

No

Do you live and work full time in the gender role opposite to that assigned at
birth?
Yes

No

In addition Press for Change advise including a third question, in relation to
whether people feel able to be open about their past in the workplace or
community. This provides useful data on the propensity to give misleading
answers.
GIRES also suggests a third question
Do you sometimes adopt the gender role opposite to that assigned at birth?
Yes

No

Further, they recommend undertaking a pilot survey, anonymously and in
guaranteed confidence.
Under no circumstance should the data ever be attributable to an individual.
Press for Change and a:gender also advise against asking if individuals are in
receipt of gender recognition documents. Not only could this imply that you
will discriminate against those that have not had their gender identity
recognised in law, but there is no legal obligation to declare possession of a
GRC.

Discussion and Recommendations
The paper finds that existing data collection and research is limited in this
area, as concluded by the Equality Data Review. Yet, it is clear from this
paper that to capture more data on the lives of trans people some originality in
approach is necessary.
We have made an initial assessment of user requirements and potential
methodological constraints. Many benefits to gathering data have been
identified, such as community recognition, population estimates, service
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